


Trinity Tower looks good from up here

by GhastlyGhost



Series: Good Good neighbors (series) [4]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Complicated Grief, Grief/Mourning, Other, Suicidal Thoughts, X3-28 is a unit mentioned in an srb terminal and is the name I use for the generic courser unit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-18
Packaged: 2018-10-07 11:26:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10359378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhastlyGhost/pseuds/GhastlyGhost
Summary: A courser unit ponders over things after one of his not strictly allowed post-mission naps.Let me and my courser son grieve.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I started this shortly after seeing this prompt on tumblr: http://justsomewritingprompts.tumblr.com/post/155807763194/writing-prompt-120-write-this-story

The rain poured over him as he looked down from the roof. Trinity tower didn't look so bad from this angle anymore. Not like when he had his partnered unit along. They never paid much heed to the height. They even wanted to jump from it, in a suit of power armor, see the fast approaching ground, and feel the impact caught in the frame of the suit. The feeling of the ground shaking with a heavy rumble. X5-58 was a unit like no other, in his eyes. They were fast, and looked of such fine make. 

The world tilted around him. He felt the air rushing past. His eyes remained calm as the ground came closer. He closed his eyes before the impact.

A gasp. The unit's eyes opened wide as he awoke. He was laying on a mattress inside a ruined factory. In his slightly confused state, his eyes darted about.

Right. He'd tried to sleep after a mission. It wasn't something the Institute approved of, but it was something he'd found to be oddly pleasant, most times. Unfortunately, after the loss of the unit he usually worked with, he started to dream differently. It used to be that the worst were where he was in the shoes of those he was reclaiming, but now, it was just him. He was himself, and it was terrible. 

He sat up and pulled his knees closer, resting his arms on them while he leaned forward.

Most loyal units would have brought this up with a scientist, but he knew what would happen. They'd have him reset and repurposed. Maybe not even the second. 

He slowly moved one arm, and ran his hand over the Institute tattoo on the back of his neck. He wondered if it could be removed. He wondered if, maybe he was a copy of a previous courser, or a prototype, and this was an indication. It would explain why he had dreamt of dying so often.

A sigh left him. He couldn't stay longer; the Institute would become suspicious if he did. 

Stepping over the bodies he'd left, he wondered some more. Maybe, if he made it look like an accident, the Institute would stop bringing him back. Or he'd never died, and his mind was just projecting a desire. 

Ridiculous. Synths didn't want. Mister Ayo had said that himself. But then… 

The unit's chest tightened.

Why did he want X5-58 back? 

It wasn't a thought of it being more convenient or efficient. His throat, chest, and eyes acted up when he thought of it, enough so that he feared a reset.

Fear.

Why would a unit that didn't want, according to the scientists, fear? Why would they run? Was this a defect in them, or a defect in the humans who made them? Of course they weren't the perfect machines the Institute wanted; the humans in the Institute were far from perfect themselves.

But X5-58 was amazing.

The unit paused at the top of a staircase. He shook his head. He'd started picturing them as they were. Brown hair, dark eyes, dark skin. A face like… What did the scientists say about people they loved? Face of an angel. 

Maybe it was just that he was bad at adjusting to things. It'd been six years. X5-58 was killed… destroyed six years ago.

Just an arm and a leg remained. A tattered uniform was left at the sight as well, holding some personal belongings he made sure the SRB didn't find. It all seemed off. 

If something had eaten them, why leave those parts? Why strip the body before taking it? If the unit was blown to pieces, why was the uniform still intact? Why didn't he find more? Someone had done something, but what?

These questions bothered him. They haunted him, at times, only aggravated by the fact that the Institute had abandoned the search efforts for this unit so soon after he'd found their remains.

He still remembered how he felt when he found them. It was as though all of time stopped around him, along with his heart and lungs. He just stared. His hands were gentle with everything he'd found. He held onto the uniform far longer than needed. It still smelled like them. 

A junior scientist agreed to keep their belongings safe for him. She was somehow close with unit X5-58, and he used her care for them to mask his grief as merely checking up on a scientist in need. 

The air blew past his face, through the millimetered hairs on his scalp, and through the stubble on his chin. 

He blinked a little, looking up at the sky. The relay could have reached him from inside, but he wanted to think some more, and see the air. X5-58 loved the sky. It kept changing. Even when there was a radiation storm, they'd be in awe. It was silly, but he'd found it to be endearing.

He dropped his shoulders, and his expressionless face turned towards the ground.

“Unit X3-28, requesting to relay back to Institute.” 

It wasn't long before he was taken by the blue flash that transported him back home. Back to do more work, alone.


End file.
